el assad because he's increasingly irrelevant here. but if his regime use or transfers chemical weapons that there will be an escalation. he didn't say necessarily a military response. >> right. now, to another key issue, richard, the president called it a hard slog toward mideast peace and a two-state solution. he vowed to say more on the subject tomorrow. but how far are we from even restarting israeli/palestinian peace talks much less reaching a deal and can you describe for us how frustrating it is for the people in that region? >> that's a big question. the first one, we're very far from a two-state israeli/palestinian solution. the israelis and palestinians are barely talking. they are not -- the populations aren't interacting anymore. there is a massive wall between the two of them in the west bank, the palestinians and the israelis in israel proper. people of gaza effectively are pinned in and can't interact with either population. so there doesn't seem to be much momentum at all to create an israeli/palestinian solution just h